If you happen across some information about Alaska’s current financial situation, you probably get the impression that we are in dire straights. When oil prices crashed 77% in late 2014, the State’s oil revenues collapsed – leaving a gaping hole in the budget. By all accounts, we’ve been deficit spending ever since. But that is[…]
We’ve looked at Alaska’s budget for the past month. In part 1, we learned some terminology. Then, in part 2, we explored what we buy with all that money. In parts 3 and 4, we analyzed where the budget growth occurred during the high oil price years, and how we got the budget back under[…]
Now that we’ve explored how the budget increased when oil prices were high, let’s take a look at what got cut when oil prices crashed. Budget Cuts The time period of interest for this article is from the highest budget year (2013) to the most recent budget (2019). In this first graph, we are only[…]
The story I hear most often is that when oil prices topped $100 a barrel, the Legislature went on a shopping spree. That sounds like a plausible story, but let’s check the data just to be sure. Budget Growth Here is a plot of the budget over time, according to Legislative Finance. These numbers represent[…]
Now that we have established some terminology, let’s take a closer look at the FY19 budget. In this post, I’ll be breaking down the budget that was passed in May 2018, for fiscal year 2019 (which began in July 2018). Disclaimer If you want the source data to do your own research, I found it[…]
If you’re watching the gubernatorial debates, you’ve probably noticed that the budget is one of the hot topics. Some candidates say the budget is still too large, others say they’ve done as much as they can to cut it. I hear numbers get thrown around, so my economist ears perk up. Here we are, about[…]
Each October, the Alaska Department of Revenue (DOR) holds an oil price forecasting session. They gather about 30 people in a room in Anchorage, talk to them about what’s going on in the oil markets, and eventually ask them to write down what they think is going to happen to oil prices for the next[…]